


Nara

by direhund



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Awkward Romance, M/M, Multiple Attempts to Assassinate Gone Horribly Gay, Romance, Short, at least thats the intent, but its already getting away from me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-10 07:53:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12294690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/direhund/pseuds/direhund
Summary: He realizes at some point that as much as he really, really wants to hate him, he's getting rather attached to the one person he's made it his mission in life to kill.





	Nara

**Author's Note:**

> idk really where this is going, it's already like 2 pages longer than it was supposed to be and still going, so have a first chapter i guess. i'm having fun and that's what matters! there's definitely going to be some fucking eventually (bc that's what i started out intending to write), so look forward to that. >;3c

The shadows of passing guards grew thinner the further away they got, twisting strangely in grotesque caricatures of their casters. A thief stole deftly across the now-empty hall, a knife glinting in the torchlight thrown haphazardly over the walls. The sconces lit throughout the palace were small and unassuming, leaving deep shadows in frequent corners and giving him ample places to huddle in a pinch. He hadn't had an easy journey through it, by no means, but he'd spent too much time traversing the well-defended homes of the dead to let the guards of the living be the ones to catch him. He'd never left a tomb empty handed, and he had no intentions of leaving this place without first achieving his goal, either.

  
  
The hall would not be safe for long, though, the thief knew, and he moved quickly. At last he had reached his destination, only a door away from his target. It wouldn't do to get caught now. Carefully, and as slowly as he dared, he pushed open one of of the heavy doors just enough to slip inside. With barely seconds to spare -- the shadows of the returning patrol grew ever larger with their impending arrival -- he closed it behind him. For a moment, he stood against the doors, listening for any sign that he'd aroused suspicion.

  
  
It was some minutes before he peeled himself away from them and stepped further into the room. Upon the walls and pillars were carved intricate depictions of a young prince, dressed often in deep hues of violet that stood out against all other colors. Throughout the room laid the prince's trophies. An amphora here, a few solid gold trinkets there, exotic furs draped over the walls and across the floor. Several forms of weaponry, laden with twinkling jewels and ribs of lapis and gold, sat on dainty display, likely never having seen use. The Pharaoh's crown was the only thing that really caught his eye, lying on velvet cushion amongst the rest of the heavy gold pieces of jewelry worn with it. Thinking about it, he couldn’t recall the prince having donned it since the death of his father. He still wore the prince’s headpiece, sat delicately to the left of the crown. Neither was his target, however, not this time. Their wearer had lives to pay for, and if the soul of a demigod was not equal to all of the innocent souls in Kul-Elna, then Bakura would never have justice for his people. But at least he would rest easier knowing the son of the one responsible had paid in turn.

  
  
He moved on from the crowns, footsteps featherlight and soundless against the alabaster stone. The thief pulled aside the thin veil that cut off the final space of the room from the rest of it, revealing the resting place of the young prince, Atem, now the Pharaoh. The floor dipped in stairs, and Bakura descended slowly and crossed the space, eyeing the body undisturbed by the intruder. Up to now, at least. Silent as he is, he cannot make himself truly weightless, and as he climbed fluidly over him, the bed dipped; the sleeping body's eyes snapped open. Bakura grit his teeth and jerked the knife up, ready to plunge it into the Pharaoh's chest before he could begin to struggle. They locked eyes and Bakura inhaled sharply, struck with hesitation.

  
  
He looked... So much younger up close... Without the dark kohl to sharply outline his eyes and brows. So much more human without the heavy gold pieces that usually dangled from his ears and over his shoulders, rested around his neck and arms. He couldn’t be much older than Bakura himself, he realized. It was jarring, having only seen him at a distance, to get right up to him and find… Just another boy. The Pharaoh blinked at him slowly, as if waiting. His eyes were dark, appearing  black in the dim light, yes, but also full of something... A dare? He seemed to challenge him with a narrowed gaze, imploring him to act as he'd come to, hands splayed out with no intent to struggle. Bakura was caught, held in place by a sudden surge of emotions, all coiled too tightly around one another to discern. And then he dared, though not to kill him. He leaned closer, turning the knife in his hand away from them as he braced his weight above the God-king. For a moment, he hovered inches away, sharing in his holy breath. The Pharaoh did not so much as twitch beneath him, but this close, he could feel the tension thrumming just under his skin.

  
  
"Are you afraid?" The Pharaoh whispered when Bakura did not move.

  
  
"Are you?" The Thief King dodged the question in a voice more harsh than he intended, mouth twisted into a sneer. The Pharaoh appraised him a moment, eyes searching his face for something.

  
  
"No."

 

Bakura didn’t care much for that. He ought to have been; after all, he came there to kill him. He decided to say as much.

 

“You should be. I came to offer your heart to the gods,” he spat, voice low and full of all the malice he suddenly couldn’t muster in his chest.

 

“I guessed,” the Pharaoh replied, one hand gesturing loosely to the knife Bakura still clutched. “But you haven’t. I don’t think you’re going to.” A breeze picked up from the balcony some feet away, ruffling the hair that hung loose around Bakura’s face. He swallowed hard, but he had no answer for him. Just the wandering thought that it was very strange for him to know that with such certainty that he didn’t even try to push Bakura off of him.

 

“So what will you do?” He broke Bakura’s loosely held train of thought with the almost accusing question. He was getting impatient. The Thief King furrowed his brows, still struggling with the strange impulse that had brought him this close to the Pharaoh’s face, but ultimately leaned in that last few inches to press a chaste kiss against his lips, thoughtful like he’d just tasted a new food for the first time. For a few seconds, the Pharaoh seemed in such a state of shock that he did nothing while Bakura leaned up and tried to sort his own mind. Only for mere seconds, and then he recovered and surged to life under him, hands jerking up to shove him away and mouth opening to spit curses at him. Bakura pressed a hand to his chest, pushing him back down and flipping the knife in his other hand in a tacit threat. He held it poised above the other, but he looked startled, like he hadn’t expected that response from the Pharaoh at all.

 

“How dare you,” he hissed, his previously passive face now marred with anger. Bakura only looked at him stranger. What an odd dish he was turning out to be.

 

“You’re not what I expected,” he said, tilting his head a little.

 

“Take your hands off me!” The prince commanded as if he hadn’t spoken, and Bakura felt the weight of it heavy on his mind. Again, he wondered at the truth of Pharaohs possessing the power of gods.

 

“You’d let me carve a hole in your chest, but get upset about a little kiss?” Bakura sneered. He felt the prince’s hand squeeze tighter around the wrist that held him down.

 

“You have no place,” he ground out, and Bakura grinned nastily down at him.

 

“Yeah, I know, because your father had it _burned it to the ground_ ,” he snarled, suddenly alive with the animosity he’d come there with. The Pharaoh’s face twisted with satisfying mix of anguished guilt and surprise before he squeezed his eyes shut.

 

“Oh, Gods, you’re-- That’s not what I--”

 

“ _I know_ ,” Bakura interrupted him, and allowed a bitter smile over his features, “I just couldn’t help myself.”

 

A sound at the door drew both their attentions. Bakura dropped the knife and leapt away from the Pharaoh as if he’d been burned. It clattered against the stone at the same time that Bakura backed away from the bed, towards the open balcony, and the door opened. The Pharaoh’s gaze tore away from him to look as his guards burst into the room, mere silhouettes on the other side of the veil. Their voices were loud and clamored over each other -- _Your Highness, your majesty; are you alright, who’s in here, what’s going on --_ and he could do nothing but stare as one of them yanked aside the curtain, weapon drawn and eyes scanning the space for any sign of danger.

 

The thief, however, was gone, leaving only the knife as evidence he’d ever been there in the first place.

  


* * *

 

  


The weeks leading up the thief’s return were uneventful. The rhythm of the palace life swept away without a single break. Patrols were tightened, particularly at night, but Atem had made it pretty clear he felt there was no real threat, and High Priest Set was more than happy to turn their attentions away from what he called “a spineless child trying to play assassin” to matters he deemed more important. Atem’s court mage was a good bit more reluctant to let it go, but eventually the incident was all but forgotten in the wake of Set’s grandiose intentions for a small-village temple that hedged the city. Atem left the shoddy blade on a table by his bedside and didn’t give it another passing glance.

 

Hence his surprise when the thief finally did show up. In the most unlikely of places, too. He was spending a rare moment of free time wading the small lagoon where the Nile curled up to meet the the palace in a near stagnant pool of shallow water, offering sweet bread to the greedy red-eyed geese and trying to tempt the shy ibis currently fishing some distance away. In the quiet atmosphere, with only the sound of the birds fluttering and squabbling and his own legs disturbing the water, he was able to relax fully. The birds claimed his full attention, mind empty of anything but how amusing their bickering was. It wasn’t until the lot of them startled some distance away from him -- by their alarm, the ibis abandoned the lagoon entirely -- that he realized someone had joined him.

 

At the steps leading down to the water stood the thief, looking uncertain and out of place among the soft splendor of the courtyard. This time, he was draped in a heavy, red coat that hung past his knees and somehow made him look more ragged than he had when he’d come to kill him in nothing but a shendyt and sandals. The Pharaoh tensed, crushing the bread left in his hand and immediately scanning the lagoon for where the thief had entered. He couldn’t have just walked out from the door into the palace surely, but Atem would have seen him coming from the other direction, had he emerged from the river itself. Where were his guards?

 

“I just came to get my knife back, before you sound the alarm,” he spoke up before Atem could demand any answers of him. It made him wonder why that hadn’t been his first instinct.

 

“How did you get out here?” He asked him, his curiosity overpowering any threat to his person he might have felt in the moment.

 

“It’s not hard. Do you have it or not?” The thief demanded, impatient. Atem realized he must have tracked him down first, rather than rifling through his quarters for it. He supposed that made sense; any well-adjusted person wouldn’t have kept it at all, making it kind of silly to go looking for it before confirming it hadn’t been gotten rid of. He also noticed, in the aborted step forward that he took, a certain hesitance about the thief’s person. His eyes broke from the Pharaoh down to the water for a split second.

 

“Are you afraid?” Atem asked him again, this time with an edge of taunting to his voice. The thief’s eyes narrowed, alight with something nasty. He clenched his fists at his sides, but would not take the next step down.

 

“Of what? Are you gonna answer my question?” He snapped. The geese had gathered around Atem’s thighs again, picking at the crumbs and his flaxen wrap for more. The thief eyed them like one might eye a flared cobra. Atem crossed his arms.

 

“It’s safe. They’re just birds,” he said.

 

“I don’t care about any dumb birds.”

 

“The water, then? It’s not deep.”

 

“What’s your point? I just came here to get my knife. It means something to me; I want it back. Then I’ll be _happily_ out of your hair,” the thief snarled, and quite viciously. Atem found it thrilling.

 

“I have it, yes,” he finally said, the ‘come get it’ left unspoken, but clear in his tone. The thief glowered at him, silent for what had to be a couple minutes, before he finally stepped down. His bare foot struck the water heavily, splashing it up his thigh even for only being ankle deep, and startling the geese away again. His next steps were sullen and slow, testing as it went deeper. He paused when the water sloshed halfway up his calves, tugging at the edges of his coat. Some distance still remained between them, and he looked at Atem balefully like he was waiting for something. Atem, of course, didn’t move except to blink and raise his chin a little, expectant. It was another minute or so before the thief broke under his gaze with a great huff and began to edge forward again. The geese stayed back among the lilypads, ruffling their feathers and squawking at the stranger Atem had all but invited into their territory.

 

When he stopped again, it was an arm’s length or so away. The water rippled around his knees and pulled at his coat, making it flare out around him where it touched the water. He held out a hand, and Atem tilted his head impishly.

 

“Oh, not with me. It’s on a table by my bedside,” he said, as if it hadn’t even occurred to him to mention that until then. The look that heated the thief’s expression was nothing less than murderous, but he made no move to breach the space between them. His arm fell tensely to his side again and he stared Atem down a moment longer, then backed up and eventually turned to slosh gracelessly back to the shore. His coat dragged behind him, weighed down even more than before by the water, and he stopped halfway up the steps to give it a frustrated look. Atem was apparently beneath any more of his attention, since he didn’t look back again. He cast a furtive glance down both ends of the hall from the doorway before he stepped back into the palace, and then he was gone with the same sure-footed silence that he’d stolen into the Pharaoh’s quarters with some nights ago.

 

When Atem retired hours later, the knife was gone as well. He assumed, perhaps with a twinge of disappointment, that he’d seen the last of his would-be assassin that afternoon.

  


* * *

  


Bakura, too, assumed that he would not be visiting the palace again. Ever. The sizzling dissatisfaction with his own inability to take the vengeance that he rightfully deserved -- and _owed_ his people -- had been met twice with a cold, hard, immovable guilt. He could not bring himself to kill the previous Pharaoh’s son, especially when the man was no longer in any state to feel the gaping loss. What he could do, was harbor the hope that Ammut had rent the dirty soul asunder for his deeds in life, and try to get on with his own life.

 

He was a nobleman, himself, after all. Outside the palace, from the shadowed alleyways of the rich upper class to the pissant streets of the slums where even the blazing eye of Ra seemed hesitant to look; he had no court, nor guards or doting subjects, but he went out of his way to preserve a certain order among the wicked, whether it was wanted or not. A collector of the wayward, mentor of the depraved, and of course, self-proclaimed King of the Thieves. Grave robbing was the habit that earned him the right to enforce his title. He was the best of them all, and despite his ever present need to amass valuables by whatever means necessary, he never cared much to keep the spoils. Often he’d trade them to merchants passing through the city; shady types of people with little care for the sacred origin of the items. Such was his routine, and he slipped back into it like a crocodile into water. He had an order to maintain, and for a time, he did so in spite of his dangerous preoccupation.

 

Granted, it did take him some time to pinpoint the source of his distress (two and a half weeks, to be exact), and even then, it was a reluctant hypothesis more than anything. It made no sense, but now that he knew he really could get in and the first time wasn’t just a fluke, Bakura was having a lot of trouble smothering the urge to make another visit to the Pharaoh’s home. The palace peered at him from atop the city, beckoning him; taunting him.

 

He picked the brightest hour of day to return to it, unsure what for, but miserably aware of the blistering gaze of the sun like judgement on his back. Probably to steal something. That seemed a decent enough reason to break into the Pharaoh’s palace in the middle of the day on a whim. The Pharaoh had chosen to hold court for the past several days, and Bakura abandoned the glaring red coat and wrapped a hood around his head and shoulders in hopes he was continuing that trend. He would prefer to avoid scaling the walls where possible. Timing the patrols was such a bothersome thing.

 

His luck held. The palace was open, though heavily guarded, and people trickled in and out. Some were being escorted less than pleasantly away. Bakura ducked alongside a gaggle of young girls and boys being herded along by an elderly priest, and the guards hardly paid him a second glance.

 

In the great hall; the Pharaoh’s throne room, people were amassed to either side of the center. At the moment, it was occupied by dancers clad in richly-colored foreign silks and Egypt’s finest linens. Bakura was reminded in particular how much he loved a finely mixed crimson by the wrap fixed around the shapely legs of a bright-eyed woman. Gold glimmered in rivulets of bracelets and cuffs down all of their arms, and pooled at their hips in belts inlaid with dark sapphires. Delicate chains ran down from the belts, some ending in softly-jingling trinkets, and others connecting to anklets that bounced loosely against their heels. Bakura wondered how they managed to dance that way, or if it really even hindered them at all. For a time, he was entranced by the fluidity with which they moved: elegant men and women alike, tossing translucent sashes in flares of color and and pulling them in sweeping arcs  to accentuate the grace of their own movement. The Pharaoh himself was absent from the throne, accounting for the buzz of noise that accompanied the music, and many of his hovering advisors were curiously absent as well… From what he could tell, the dancers seemed to be occupying the High Priest -- aptly named, Bakura noted with some amusement -- in the absence of the king’s audience.

 

Then he remembered what he’d come there for, and broke away from his idle reverie to shuffle leisurely through the crowd. The chances of catching the Pharaoh alone on a day like this were slim, he’d realized shortly after arriving, but the least he could do was actually steal something for all his trouble. Something the king would certainly miss. He located the easiest access point to the rest of the palace, tucked away in a little nook between two pillars not far from the throne, and only being watched by one guard. Had the man not been standing there, he doubted he would have noticed it at all. Likely a servant’s entrance; easy pickings.

 

He played the part of a concerned young citizen, pulling his hood low over his brightly-colored hair under the guise of a worried gesture and pointing the guard in the direction of “ _a rowdy old man trying to start some trouble over there_.” He dogged the man’s heels just long enough to make him think there were no stragglers at his unwatched post. Once he was focused on finding the the non-existent problem in the crowd, Bakura doubled back. He cast a quick glance around, and then slipped unnoticed through the door.

 

As it turned out, it was not, in fact, a servant’s hallway. A hallway certainly, but occupied currently by the object of his distraction and a woman, speaking to the Pharaoh quickly and animatedly. Definitely not a servant’s hallway. The small girl startled dramatically when she took notice of the still-shocked Bakura, breaking off mid-sentence and tugging the Pharaoh to one side by his arm to leap in front of him.

 

“Who are you?” She demanded, “How did you get out here?” Surprisingly fierce, despite looking like a child. Bakura, rather than answering, thought to wonder the same thing. How did he keep getting here? Shouldn’t security have been a little tighter during such an occasion? Especially on a door tucked so far away from a witness’ eye?

 

Atem turned slowly to appraise their interruption, his brow furrowed with a mix of annoyance and disdain. It was the first time Bakura had seen a look like that on his face, and with the dark kohl back in place and gold shimmer accenting it, it was downright fucking menacing. Bakura was almost disappointed when the expression was replaced with cool familiarity and he no longer had a real excuse to be standing wide-eyed and slack-jawed in a sudden understanding of why the Pharaoh carved such fear and respect within the hearts of his people. Those that witnessed him up close, in all his glory, witnessed a _god_ . Bakura knew now, Horus had truly taken a physical manifestation among the people and its name was _Atem_.

 

“Relax, Mana. He’s harmless,” The Pharaoh said, putting a staying hand on her shoulder. His nails were dyed with a rich copper-red to match the henna on his lips, and Bakura tried hard not to stare at those too when he noticed. The girl, Mana, looked doubtful, so he continued, “This is the one that was scared of the water.”

 

“Oh!” Mana relaxed immediately, and even smiled warmly. “So you’re the one who keeps sneaking in here to see Prince. I have to say, I’ve been wondering; you’re not a wizard are you? It would certainly explain how you keep getting into places you shouldn’t be able to,” she went on, a complete change in personality. Bakura was too taken aback by it to remain offended at the Pharaoh’s jab, or even take note of the implication that he kept breaking in merely to visit.

 

“I’m not. I’m just good at…” Bakura stopped, mouth dry and unsure. “Sneaking,” he finished rather dumbly. Mana laughed, incredulous and delighted by his answer, it seemed.

 

“Me too! Well, except when it’s my Master I’m sneaking up on. He always knows if someone’s lurking,” she said, a note of clear fondness in her voice.

 

“He’s waiting for you, isn’t he?” The Pharaoh asked, looking past Bakura to the door he’d come in from. Mana gasped, curling her fingers in the dark hair that framed her face.

 

“Oh, right! I’d better go before he gets too impatient! I’ll tell Set you’re in safe hands,” she assured him as she scooted by the thief and back towards the stairs. He didn’t turn to watch her leave, instead watching the Pharaoh with a hint of agitation.

 

“‘Safe hands’?” He repeated once her footsteps had passed, lip curling unpleasantly. He swallowed his awe hard, trying to reclaim the rough persona he’d presented thus far. The Pharaoh crossed his arms, looking unconcerned. Bakura decided that the makeup and jewelry he wore for the public was nice, but ultimately made him look haughty and cold. At that moment, bearing the face of Horus, Bakura too easily forgot that he was barely more than a boy. It was both parts unsettling and stunning in way that sat wrong in Bakura’s gut. He didn’t like it. The urge to smear it away flared hotly in his veins.

 

“I didn’t expect you’d be slinking around my halls again. Unless, of course, you were arrested for whatever hobbies you keep when you aren’t trespassing in my private chambers, but I wasn’t holding my breath,” Atem said without acknowledging Bakura’s edged quip at all.

 

“Disappointed, your highness?” Bakura sneered. The Pharaoh only tilted his head a little, looking Bakura over as if seeing a strange-looking spider for the first time. Bakura swore the hall they stood in echoed his heartbeat back at him. Bakura licked his lips and spared a nervous glance around. Surely _someone_ would ask after their beloved Pharaoh when he didn’t reappear before his court shortly after the girl. It occurred to him that, leaving him alone with her king, she’d all but wrapped him in ribbons and sheer flax -- which, speaking of, he definitely wasn’t just noticing the dark skin of his thighs under the wrap. If he was quick about it, they’d be none the wiser; the only witness was a half-wit magician’s apprentice, and Bakura looks at his face again and remembers that he wants to wipe the kohl off it; except maybe he just wants to touch him. Very carefully.

 

Bakura dared a few steps closer and then felt the hall darken with the shadow of a newcomer as much as he saw the recognition and surprise in the Pharaoh’s face.

 

“Mahaad,” he began, voice serious, but the other man spoke ahead of him.

 

“I would ask you to step away from His Majesty. Forgive me.” The voice was dark and heavy with a threat, except at the end. Bakura didn’t move, and it took him a moment to infer that this ‘Mahaad’ was not asking for his forgiveness, but the Pharaoh’s.

 

“There is no cause for alarm,” the king said, measures of patience in his tone. Bakura turned just enough that he could look at the newcomer properly, and the first thing he noticed was the heavy gold ring hanging from his neck. It glinted at him impishly, the eye carved in its center commanding his attention. Distantly, he heard the girl from earlier speaking as she squeezed past the man filling the space of the hall to insist that she _told him you were fine, Prince, I swear I did! He just had to come see for himself!_

 

“If you would allow me to have him escorted out.” Mahaad cut back into his field of awareness with his vicious suggestion, and Bakura met his scorching gaze with something equally nasty. And all of his teeth split wide in a grin.

 

“No need, I’m a guest,” he said cheekily, Mahaad’s disdainful gaze having quite the opposite effect to the Pharaoh’s. Mana smacked her hands over her mouth, though it did no good hiding the surprised smile behind them, so delighted was she by his gall, he supposed. It only spurred his confidence.

 

“I know very well who and _what_ you are,” Mahaad replied coldly, dark eyes fixed dangerously on the thief, as if he’d like nothing more than smite him where he stood. “Gutter-dwelling liar, blasphemous thief, and attempted assassin, among other deplorable things. That you’re even still standing -- still breathing -- after being caught back here again is only a testament to the idle whims of your king.”

 

It was a crude, derogatory thing to say; one that made Bakura’s face warm with offense. He was no plaything of some pampered demi-god, allowed to roam for the sake of his entertainment. The idea was enough to set him bristling, and he opened his mouth and took a step forward with every intent to make the magician regret the petty remark. Mahaad steeled himself readily, and Mana straightened up with a protest on her lips and an uncertain look between the two of them, halfway to moving bodily between them.

 

“Be still,” Atem’s voice was sharp, making all of them freeze and look at him. He looked irritated. Mana wrapped her hand around one of her master’s wrists in a staying gesture, but her eyes stayed on the Pharaoh. “Mahaad, you both have business elsewhere. If it eases your mind, see this one out,” he flicked his fingers agitatedly in Bakura’s direction, “But you know Set is just as capable as yourself. I would not have come to harm, nor will I when you depart. Now, I must see to my people.” The last bit seemed to be more or less directed at Bakura. A dismissal, for all intents and purposes. Frustration prickled under his skin as the Pharaoh strode by him, violet cloak flaring delicately in a gentle wind of his own making. He almost reached out and snatched it, to yank him back, or something to that nature, but he’d never be sure. The wizard’s hawk-eyes on him kept him from acting on the impulse. He ground his teeth together.

 

“Mana, see to him. I’ll meet you again once I’ve ensured the desert has back its missing mongrel,” Mahaad ordered, sounding more tired than triumphant in his victory over a common street-thug. Mana scampered away from the pair of them with a last sympathetic gaze cast Bakura’s way, following the Pharaoh back out into the throne room. Mahaad gathered the back of Bakura’s collar like the scruff of a dog, pushing him through the hall that wound away from the throne room with a surprisingly strong grip. No sense in parading him back through the busy court like he mattered, Bakura supposed. A less conspicuous exit would befit him nicely.


End file.
